DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the Amendments and Remarks received 10/24/2025 in which claim 4 is cancelled, claims 1–3 are amended, and no claims are added as new claims.
Response to Arguments
The amendment to claim 3 overcomes the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101 and 35 U.S.C. 102. Remarks, 5.
On pages 6–8 of the Remarks, Applicant contends the prior art is deficient for failing to teach or suggest the features added by way of amendment. Examiner finds the arguments moot in view of the new grounds of rejection necessitated by amendment. Specifically, with respect to the newly added subject matter identifying that non-directional intra prediction modes get the default zig zag scanning order rather than the directional scanning indicated by directional intra prediction modes, the rejection now additionally relies on the teachings of Chen. Chen teaches that the skilled artisan already had in his possession the knowledge of non-directional intra prediction modes such as DC mode and planar mode. Because Chen evidences that those modes were already known to the skilled artisan at the time the skilled artisan would have been considering the contributions of Zheng, Saxena, and Ye, it would have been obvious to handle those non-directional modes with a non-directional scanning order (i.e. zig-zag scanning order) since that was the default scanning order at the time. In other words, where the prior art says that a certain scan order, for example, horizontal or vertical, is indicated in a situation in which the intra-prediction direction is horizontal or vertical, it is also obvious that the non-directionality of DC and planar modes would indicate a default zig-zag scanning pattern rather than horizontal or vertical. Prior art references such as Coban or Hsiun, cited under the Conclusion Section of this Office Action, evidences that the skilled artisan had in his possession the knowledge that the default scanning order was zig-zag. Therefore, because the skilled artisan had in his possession prior to Applicant’s priority date the knowledge of non-directional scanning directions and the default zig-zag scan, Applicant’s averred feature is nonpatentable as obvious under 35 U.S.C. 103.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1–3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zheng (US 2012/0163455 A1), Saxena et al., “CE7: Mode-dependent DCT/DST for intra prediction in video coding,” JCTVC-D033, 4th Meeting: Daegu, KR, January 2011 (herein “Saxena”), Ye et al., “Improved H.264 Intra Coding Based on Bi-Directional Intra Prediction, Directional Transform, and Adaptive Coefficient Scanning”, 15th IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, ICIP 2008, Oct. 2008 (herein “Ye”), and Chen (US 2012/0170649 A1).
Regarding claim 1, the combination of Zheng, Saxena, Ye, and Chen teaches or suggests a method for decoding a video signal, comprising: deriving an intra prediction mode of a current block; determining a transform type of the current block based on the intra prediction mode of the current block (Saxena, Introduction and Table 1: teaches determining a transform type based on the intra prediction mode; Ye, Section 2.2: teaches determining transform type based on intra prediction mode); determining a scan type of the current block to be a zigzag scan, or a vertical scan, or a horizontal scan (Ye, Section 2.2: teaches determining scan direction based on intra prediction mode wherein vertical prediction (respectively horizontal) gets a horizontal (respectively vertical) scan direction; Ye does not restrict the universe of possibilities to zigzag, vertical, and horizontal and instead teaches an adaptive scan based on statistics; Zheng teaches a simplification wherein the scan types are just three; Zheng, ¶ 0078 and Figs. 6, 9, and 10: teaches scanning types of horizontal, vertical, or zigzag determined according to intra-prediction direction wherein vertical prediction (respectively horizontal) gets a horizontal (respectively vertical) scan direction); deriving transform coefficients of the current block based on the scan type of the current block (Zheng, ¶¶ 0005 and 0008: teaches transform coefficients are scanned into a one-dimensional array); and performing an inverse-transform on the transform coefficients based on the transform type of the current block (Zheng, ¶ 0035: teaches the decoder performs the inverse processes of the encoder as a reciprocal process to decode the encoded data; Zheng, ¶ 0065: teaches inverse transforming to undo the transformation at the encoder), wherein the scan type of the current block of which the intra prediction mode is one of a first plurality of intra prediction modes including the horizontal mode, is determined as the vertical scan, wherein the scan type of the current block of which the intra prediction mode is one of a second plurality of intra prediction modes including the vertical mode, is determined as the horizontal scan, and wherein the scan type of the current block of which the intra prediction mode is other than the first plurality of intra prediction modes and the second plurality of intra prediction modes, is determined as the zigzag scan (Zheng, ¶ 0078 and Figs. 6, 9, and 10: teaches scanning types of horizontal, vertical, or zigzag determined according to intra-prediction direction wherein vertical prediction (respectively horizontal) gets a horizontal (respectively vertical) scan direction), wherein intra prediction modes, which are other than the first plurality of intra prediction modes and the second plurality of intra prediction modes, further comprise non-directional intra prediction modes (Chen, Fig. 1 and ¶ 0036: teaches there are 33 intra prediction directional modes plus DC mode and planar mode; Chen, ¶ 0054: teaches horizontal or vertical or diagonal or zigzag scanning based on transform modes; This teaching, combined with Zheng’s teaching that directional intra prediction modes can dictate scan direction or zigzag scan teaches or suggests as obvious non-directional modes getting a default zigzag scan due to their lack of directionality; see also Coban and Hsiun, cited under the Conclusion Section of this Office Action, explaining what the skilled artisan already knows regarding zig zag being the default scan order).
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to combine the elements taught by Saxena, Zheng, and Ye because all three references are drawn to the same field of endeavor and because combining Saxena’s mode-dependent transform with Zheng’s mode-dependent scanning was known to achieve better results along the intra-prediction directions as taught by Ye’s teaching that even after separable 1-D directional transforms there is still some directionality present in the data after directional intra-prediction that can be further exploited for further compression gains (Ye, Section 2.2.2). Therefore, the combination is a mere combination of prior art elements, according to known methods, to yield a predictable result. This rationale applies to all combinations of Saxena, Zheng, and Ye used in this Office Action unless otherwise noted.
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to combine the elements taught by Saxena, Zheng, and Ye, with those of Chen, because all four references are drawn to the same field of endeavor such that one wishing to practice mode-dependent coding tools would be led to their relevant teachings and because Chen’s disclosure of prior art HEVC directional and non-directional intra prediction modes evidences how the skilled artisan would interpret Saxena’s and Zheng’s use of intra-mode dependency based on directionality to require the handling of non-directional modes to inform their use of the mode-dependent coding tools. Therefore, combining Chen’s description of the HEVC directional and non-directional intra prediction modes with other prior art describing the directionality of intra prediction modes is a mere combination of prior art elements, according to known methods, to yield a predictable result. This rationale applies to all combinations of Saxena, Zheng, Ye, and Chen used in this Office Action unless otherwise noted.
Claim 2 lists the same elements as claim 1, but is drawn to the corresponding encoding method rather than the decoding method. Because the skilled artisan understands the description of the algorithm at either encoder or decoder necessarily teaches the reciprocal process at the other side, the rationale for the rejection of claim 1 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 3 lists the same elements as claim 1, but is drawn to a method for transmitting a bitstream rather than the method for decoding a bitstream. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 1 applies to the instant claim.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Yeo (US 2013/0343454 A1) teaches a horizontal intra-prediction mode gets a vertical scanning pattern (e.g. ¶ 0090 and Figs. 9 and 10).
Kim (US 2012/0163469 A1) teaches mode dependent directional transform and mode dependent scanning order (¶ 0069).
Seregin (US 2013/0301705 A1) teaches determining the scan direction of the chroma component to match the scan direction of the luma component when the intra-prediction direction of the chroma and luma components match. When they don’t match, then the chroma scan direction is one of zigzag, horizontal, or vertical based on intra prediction mode (¶ 0019).
Ye et al., “Improved H.264 Intra Coding Based on Bi-Directional Intra Prediction, Directional Transform, and Adaptive Coefficient Scanning”, 15th IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, ICIP 2008, Oct. 2008, 4 pp. Section 2 describes intra-mode dependent directional transforms and intra-mode dependent coefficient scanning wherein a vertical intra prediction mode gets a horizontal scan and vice versa.
Park (US 2014/0126643 A1) teaches scanning direction based on block size and intra prediction mode (¶ 0047).
Yeo et al., “CE7: Mode-Dependent Transforms for Block-based Intra Coding from Institute for Infocomm Research,” JCTVC-D046, 4th Meeting: Daegu, KR, January 2011. Notice teachings by the same author at the same meeting mode-dependent transforms and mode-dependent scanning.
Yeo et al., “Mode-Dependent Coefficient Scanning for Intra Prediction Residual Coding,” JCTVC-D049, 4th Meeting: Daegu, KR, January 2011. Notice teachings by the same author at the same meeting mode-dependent transforms and mode-dependent scanning.
Coban (US 2012/0099646 A1) teaches zig-zag scan order is the default (¶¶ 0050 and 0142).
Hsiun (US 2003/0235251 A1) teaches the default scanning order is zig-zag, but that horizontal or vertical scans can be signaled instead (page 6, Table 1 and Figs. 10–14).
Jeon (US 2013/0336591 A1) teaches non-directional DC and planar modes (e.g. ¶ 0007) and zigzag, horizontal, or vertical scanning (e.g. ¶ 0057)
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/MICHAEL J HESS/Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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